Classic Poem

Spring, risen and light-crowned, touched the slumbering flowers
In deep green bowers:
They bloomed and loved and sang, and praised their King.
“Rise from your rest, O sisters sweet, for soon
It will be June,
The world will need our fragrant comforting!”
So spake the rose;
And from repose
The countless hosts of sister-roses woke.
They filled the air
With fragrance rare,
As morning after summer morning broke.

Then came the violets in their myriads too,
Arrayed in blue,
Save some, the tenderest, who were robed in white.
All sang to heaven their song of perfect praise,
And filled the ways
With scent divine by day, though most by night.
Yes, most by night,
For then the light
Of the enchantress moon is over each:
And then you hear,
Low, silver-clear,
The tender murmur of the flowers' soft speech.

Then rose to rose, lily to lily speaks.
Then by the creeks,
Whereover pours a flood of moonlight pale,
Gentle forget-me-not and iris bold,
Blue, streaked with gold,
Converse, and love lifts from their hearts its veil.
“Lo! God is god”—
In the green wood
Thus spake a wild rose to its sister nigh:
“See'st thou up there
Those star-flowers fair?
Those are what roses come to, when they die!

“Yes, sister, roses die,—and then they light
The whole wide night;
They change to what men call the ‘stars’ above:
And then for endless ages they shine through
The endless blue,
And thrill the souls of men to dreams of love.
“No blossoms die:
The whole wide sky
Receives, and turns to stars their silvery bloom.
The fields of air
That gleam up there
Receive us, sister, in their azure tomb.

“Just for one little moment here we dream,
And then we gleam
For ever set upon the brow of space:
Aye, then with exultation we shall find
—God is so kind!—
Another and a deathless dwelling-place.
“Here we delight
For one sweet night
One pair of lovers with our breath most sweet:
But when we die
We shall supply
Light to a thousand fond hearts when they meet.”


So spake to a sister-flower the pale pink rose,
Like one who knows
The secrets of the stars and of the night.
And then two lovers came, and plucked the rose—
And now it glows
Doubtless amid the stars, and gives man light.
What once was breath
Most sweet, in death
Has been transfigured into higher bloom:
The rose once flowered,
But now is dowered
With light, to gleam across the purple gloom.

Praise, love and praise. This ever was the word
The flower-souls heard:
They caught no distant note of Satan's psalm.
The fragrant wondrous flower-world's vast content
With joy was blent,
And infinite repose, and ceaseless calm.
“O sun gold-red,”
The daisy said,
“Thou art so grand, and yet thou copiest me!
My heart of gold
I now behold
In the blue waves, reflected back from thee!”

The violet whispered, as it gazed on high,
“O deep-blue sky,
Thou steal'st my hues. I love thee for the theft!”
The sky laughed out to hear the violet's speech;
Pure love filled each:
“Love,” sang the green ferns in the granite-cleft.
“Love,” sang the sun;
And from his throne
To fill the daisy's heart he sent down rays,
Till it became
One golden flame,
A golden sunflower flashing back his gaze.


And then a lily in the garden-bed,
Lifting her head,
Said to her sister, “Happiness is ours,
Indeed. We live but for a little while,
And yet our smile
Is deathless. Yes: the good God loves his flowers.
“In pale sick-rooms
Some lily blooms:
The sufferer's sad eye kindles as it sees
The dainty stem,
White diadem,
And fragrant heart that maddened once the bees.

“Nothing is lost.—We bloom but for a day,
And yet we stay
For ever in the soul that found us fair.
We lift and comfort; we redeem and save:
Yes, even the grave
Grows beautiful, when lilies enter there.
“The ghost-moths white
That flit by night
Around our stalks, and through the grass-blades dry,
Were lilies. Now
From bough to bough
Their white wings carry them. We shall not die!

“Nothing can die. All things but shift and grow,
With progress slow:
The lovers we have seen beside us stand
Will grow to angels—as the lilies change
To ghost-moths strange—
And win their gold wings in another land.
“Praise God, who makes
The hills and lakes;
Whose hand can guard whate'er his heart hath given:
The golden air,
The sun up there,
The stars that whisper, ‘We are flowers of heaven.’”